


2307, 2309, 2311, 2313

by 8june1983



Category: Gundam 00
Genre: Gen, Im trying my best, and most of this was written at ungodly hours please pls bear with me, and one more thing & means platonic / means more than that, bc i love angst, but not intimate because i only have a vague idea of how to properly write tieria and im sorry, i am really really sorry about the tieria part because im really bad at writing complex characters, i just want to meet everyone standard, just enjoy the angst tbh, rather than use my own opinion of his character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-22 12:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13764654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8june1983/pseuds/8june1983
Summary: In 2307, Neil thinks of his ideal world and realises while he has the power to change it from its very foundations, he won't be a part of that world.In 2309, Setsuna wanders, wonders, and remembers a man whose name hadn't been carved into remembrance just yet.In 2311, Tieria mourns silently for a man whom he doesn't want to forget, but still can't seem to pinpoint how he changed himself.In 2313, Lyle remembers those he has lost, and thinks of those he is still trying to understand.(what is a summary) (extremely spoiler heavy)





	2307, 2309, 2311, 2313

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work not just for the Gundam 00 fandom, but also in general -- I haven't written since July of last year (thanks to me being a STEM major and not an English major confidence is nonexistent). All of my previous fics for a few RPFs, Yuri On Ice, and Kuroko's Basketball have been scrapped because I needed a cleaner start. 
> 
> This entire fic is a spoiler for 1x23, 2x26 - 2x27, and 2x45 - 2x50. Also, the second and third parts combine material from the Setsuna-centric chapter of MS Gundam 00: In Those Days manga, and a very special little clip of Tieria from the PS2 game.
> 
> Also, this was intended to be a fic for Lockon Stratos Day aka Neil and Lyle's birthday, but it turned into a Neil and Neilxeveryone character study how
> 
> Just enjoy my work and the amount of angst I can pile into fanfiction at ungodly hours of the night!

2307, 2309, 2311, 2313.

8june1983

* * *

 2307: he who accepts his unchanging self

 -

What was common, in all of the trips Neil Dylandy made to the memorial burial grounds for the 2298 Dublin Suicide Bombing, was that nearly every time he had gone to pay his respects to the family he had lost years ago, the hills were foggy, the air was misty with a recent downpour, and he was the only person who would ever leave decent flowers or other small items near the gravestone.

 

So what made this visit special, nine years after the bombing, and five years after Neil left Ireland to work for Celestial Being -- was that someone had already left the same type of white flower bouquet that he usually would leave at the end of his visit. It was fresh, too -- someone had been here before he arrived at the memorial entrance, and it was not too long ago.

 

_Could it have been Lyle?_

 

 _No_ , Neil pushed the thought aside. Why would his brother, who had already moved onward from the shock of losing their parents and sister faster than Dynames could activate its Shield Bit System -- decide to come pay his respects at such a time?

 

But it was quite clear to Neil that Lyle was obviously making a name for himself out there. They had been out of contact ever since Neil finished secondary school, and Neil had stopped sending the usual birthday money supply once he had joined Celestial Being. Neil had chose to join out of his own will, too, because he knew that joining forces with Celestial Being would one day lead him to an opportunity to avenge his dead family...

 

Maybe it was a sign.

 

After placing his flowers neatly next to the second bouquet, and muttering a quick prayer to a God that couldn’t possibly love such a broken world, Neil glanced up above him.

 

It was still raining. The sky was starting to lighten a bit, but Neil could not feel any sign of the end of rainfall. And then Neil realised that the rain that accompanied his visits to the gravesite was quite a lot like him.

 

It was always there.

 

Just like how Neil never forgot to remember how he had lost his family during every armed intervention, how Neil always kept those cursed images of rubble, blood, and screams of agony in his head each time he sortied, each time Dynames sniped an enemy down.

 

-

 

The next time Neil returned to the gravestone, he had already accepted a fact that he had tried to ignore for a very long time: that he couldn't change himself along with this world he hated so much.

 

The very reason Neil joined Celestial Being in the first place -- five years earlier, when a gaunt-looking man named Grave Violento approached him at the official memorial statue and gave him a data stick, a job offer, and a new name -- was to rid the world of terrorism, and all acts an causes of warfare, and begin rebuilding a more peaceful one from the bottom up. Neil still felt like he could do that, after today.

 

But he wouldn’t change along with this world.

 

He couldn’t, not with the fact that Lyle was still living out there, somewhere, in this broken world, and certainly not as he and the rest of the Gundam Meisters continued to finish their missions, one by one, until the Plan slowly drew closer to its full implementation--and the various governments of the world were starting to unite, only to drive them off and for good reason, too...

 

What would Lyle say, if he found out what his brother had been up to for five years without sending any money or other form of acknowledgement? Would he take the worlds’ governments’ stance against the organisation destined to unite the world? Or would he be sympathetic but unable to comprehend his reasoning -- just as he was unable to comprehend why Neil couldn't move forward positively?

 

What would his parents say? What would his sister say? Surely they would think he was trying too hard to be the champion of the world, the kind of champion he was ironically named to be.

 

The Gundam was a tool given to him for this purpose. He believed in Dynames’ capabilities, and his comrades’ as well. Even after two years of working together with performance tests and secret interventions, he couldn’t seem to get the others to get along with each other, let alone smile in relief after a hard day’s end. But Tieria was changing, learning to move forward towards the Plan while accepting his shortcomings. Setsuna might have been part of the organisation who had sent that suicide bomber to destroy his life, but he clearly regretted with every fiber of his being every action he took as a KPSA child soldier -- and was so clearly trying to move away from it and become his own person, fighting for a better world where no one would ever experience what Setsuna had been through. 

 

For a moment Neil wished he could believe in himself too, after everything he had accomplished with the others, after they were just starting to get along, because missions worked out better when they wee conducted with all the Meisters in tandem. But in the end, Neil knew that he had become a walking contradiction to his cause. He would try his best to bring about a change in the world he used to live in, a positive change, but ultimately, he would not be a lasting part of it when everything was finally over.

 

Along with the leader of the KPSA, Neil knew that he too wouldn't have much long to live. So until then, he'd give his all to the others, and when he happened to leave this twisted world, he'd pass his ambitions onto them, because he knew one of his comrades could pull it off better than himself. 

 

-

 

(And before Neil said his final goodbyes to this world, he came to realise that he was glad that he believed in his friends, after all.)

 

* * *

2309: he who grieves silently, questioning the world once more

-

Setsuna could have gone searching for whatever remnants of Celestial Being was left. 

 

But after all Setsuna had gone through since the final battle -- waking up still injured, still inside Exia's cockpit; barely managing to move the broken Gundam to an uncolonised part of Lagrange 4; posing as an injured UN pilot to receive treatment for his injuries within the colony -- his gut feeling had wanted to see what the world since "the fall of Celestial Being" was starting to take shape as.

 

A year had passed since that final battle, and it had only been a few months since Setsuna returned to Earth and began to wander, trying to find what was continuing to make this world so twisted even among its leaders' promises of unity and eternal peace.

 

It didn't take long for Setsuna to realise that he had reached Ireland, really.

 

Ireland was, Setsuna remembered, the country that Lockon Stratos -- _Neil Dylandy_ \-- had called home for nineteen years. 

 

Setsuna knew nothing about Ireland other than what Neil had told him in between missions, especially about how he lost his parents and younger sister. The 2298 Dublin Suicide Bombing affected hundreds of people and their families, not just Neil's. Setsuna could tell, years later, that no matter how much time passed there was likely not a single person living in Ireland in 2309 that couldn't remember what they were doing at the time when the news of the terrorist bombing broke out. 

 

Setsuna reached the burial grounds in the hills in the evening. It was raining heavily, the kind of rain that soaked Setsuna to the bone and slicked back the strands of Setsuna's hair so that they'd stick to his skin.

 

He stopped walking when he reached a gravestone marked with three names, all bearing the surname Dylandy.

 

 _This was it_ , Setsuna thought, _this is the place Neil would go to every so often_ , since long before they and the other Meisters set off on their armed interventions, and even before the Thrones had appeared. 

 

Just looking at the names of Neil's family members, and his name missing, hurt more than any gunshot wound.

 

Setsuna decided to address Neil by his codename first.

 

"Lockon...are you here? Or are you...in space?" Setsuna asked the darkening sky. Had the UN forces even recovered his body, after the battle? Or had they left Neil to float across the stars, thinking not to treat a deceased member of Celestial Being the same way they'd treat a dead comrade of their own. 

 

The very thought of imagining Neil Dylandy's body still in space was even more painful than seeing the Type D GN Arms go up in lavender smoke, engulfing the remnants of Dynames and its pilot.

 

Setsuna slowly reached his hand out and ran it over the smoothness of black granite. His hand was trembling. He realised that he had another question to ask, one that needed answering before Setsuna could continue his way across the vastness of the changing Earth.

 

"As for what I'm going to do for now, from now on...am I following your wish? Or am I going against it?"

 

"Is it alright if I continue to fight alongside you...remembering you?"

 

It was then that Setsuna remembered part of what Neil had told him that day, after they had confronted the Thrones about their methods of intervention. 

 

> _"I have to apologise for my behaviour. I let my anger get the best of me."_
> 
> _"Don't worry about it."_
> 
> _"Actually...I know I said my entire family was killed, but I still have a younger brother."_
> 
> _Setsuna blinked. A younger brother?_
> 
> _"As long as Lyle Dylandy is still out there somewhere...I want to change this world with Dynames, for his sake too. That's part of the reason why I still fight the way I do."_
> 
> _"To change this world..." Setsuna murmured. "With our Gundams," he said, a bit more firmly._
> 
> _Neil narrowed his eyes. He looked even more determined than usual. "Yeah."_

Setsuna tried to imagine what Neil would say to him if he was still alive. Neil, who died alongside his final nemesis, the leader of the KPSA. Neil, who, despite all his talk of wanting to change the world for his dead family's sake, for his brother's future, for the world's future, for the sake of the _Plan_ \-- Neil, who let his desire for revenge and his desire to kill the person responsible for so much pain in his life override everything else in the very end of his life. Neil, who was actually quite prepared to die, because he knew that even if he could change the lives of many, he couldn't change his own.

 

_If Neil couldn't change..._

 

Setsuna decided that he would begin to change. 

 

He remembered he had told him that day that as long as he was still alive, he would continue to fight with his Gundam. _His Exia..._

 

In the very end, Neil couldn't believe in himself -- but he believed in Setsuna, in Allelujah and Tieria and the rest of the Ptolemaios crew. He had changed _them_ , at least, for the betterment of this broken world...

 

As soon as Setsuna got his answer to his question, he let the tears fall from his eyes, and sank to his knees. If he were to begin to change, Setsuna would start by atoning for his mistakes and his friend's shortcomings as well.

-

(And when Setsuna was rescued by Celestial Being three years later, he was given an even bigger opportunity to become a true Gundam.)

* * *

 2311: he who can only remember fleeting, eternal feelings

-

 Four years ago Tieria Erde would have wholly opposed the thought of going down to Earth for a vacation. 

 

Or rather, the Tieria Erde that existed four years ago would not have even bothered to do so. The Tieria Erde that existed now was now walking in the middle of a large memorial burial grounds in the outskirts of Dublin, amid a fierce rainstorm that had only just begun to relent. 

 

Rain was the type of weather that the Tieria Erde from four years ago would have felt the most calm in. But right now, Tieria hated the way his long strands of hair stuck to his neck, and how utterly useless his grey umbrella was trying to keep his almost brand-new black suit dry -- Feldt had picked it out personally when she found out that Tieria was _actually taking some time off Gundam construction for once!_  

 

Tieria spotted a certain black granite gravestone, one that seemed to almost perfectly match how black and wet his suit was. It had three names engraved onto it -- no doubt no one had reported Neil Dylandy as killed-in-action.

 

 _This must be the place_ , he thought. 

 

Neil's full name might not have been on the stone yet, but Tieria still felt it appropriate to leave the flower bouquet he bought by its side. After all, this was the family Neil had cared so deeply about that he would risk his own life to kill the very person who had sent a young child away to trigger the Dublin Suicide Bombing of 2298. 

 

Tieria actually still didn't know much about Neil, or any of the other Meisters, even though it had been four years since they had begun public armed interventions together, and Tieria had learned the truth about Setsuna and Neil's connection through the KPSA -- the organisation Neil swore he would take down with his own hands so many years ago. 

 

Tieria hadn't thought much of Neil, back when he was still the newly named Lockon Stratos of Celestial Being and there were only two Gundam Meisters. But Tieria cannot remember much of the time before the interventions, before he started having shortcomings in his own duties as a Gundam Meister, before the Thrones appeared and got in the way of the Plan. He can only clearly remember the after, what happened after Setsuna and Neil made amends with each other, what happened after Veda cut the Meisters' off from its database, and how he had felt--

 

Was it a good thing or a bad thing? Tieria asked himself. What was the meaning of his eyes feeling heavier, like they were broken machinery parts overfatigued and ready to completely blow? The more he thought about Neil, the more Tieria could feel a heavy weight begin to sink his body down, a weight that had been invisible.(or had Tieria really been secretly keeping this intense feeling back ever since that battle, the one where Neil went out with Dynames and the D Type Arms without orders, and destroyed the Throne Drei seconds before the Arms were destroyed, and he was killed instantly in the explosion afterwards?)

 

He remembered how it felt, to no longer feel that connection to Veda that felt reassuring, even absolving. It was like his heart was empty and void of all feeling, and the first person who had come to fill it was Neil, when he tried to talk to him about how he was feeling. He felt like he was no longer capable of being a Gundam Meister (and he wouldn't dare say _capable of doing anything at all_ , back then, because something kept him from saying that in from of Neil Dylandy), and Neil had told him, _so what if you're unfit to carry out your duties as a Gundam Meister? just do it_ , coming so easily out of his mouth when he sacrificed his sniping eye minutes earlier, to save Tieria's life...

 

Even now, four years alter, Tieria still felt guilty for making Neil lose his good eye. One apology would never be enough. Tieria never had a chance to properly ask Neil why he decided to protect him and Virtue, instead of going after the enemy -- it was one of the few remnants of _that_ Tieria that was left, by then, really -- and that was because he had gone and died to avenge his family, that mattered more than anything else to him for those ten minutes of intense combat, and completely blocked any sense of reason out of his mind that would have stopped him--

 

All of these feelings since the day he had lost his connection to Veda were all so new, and all so short-lived, because there was such little time in between that encounter with the UN forces and the second one, and the third one, and the last. And there were still yet some parts of _that_ Tieria from four years ago that still remained. The parts of Tieria Erde that had changed, Tieria still couldn't fully identify yet. And he wanted to. As _this_ Tieria Erde stood in front of the Dylandy family gravestone, he wanted to know one thing, the answer to one question only.

 

"Lockon...Stratos..." Tieria muttered under his breath, and it came out shaky and Tieria couldn't form the rest of the question with his mouth. 

 

_So this is what humans call grief..._

 

Tieria wanted to know why it had to be _him_ ; out of Setsuna and Allelujah and himself, why did Neil specially care for _him_ more than the others, more than even young Setsuna -- why did Neil lose his eye to save his life, why did he let himself become so blinded by his hatred and anguish that he would let his life go if it meant he'd take his ultimate nemesis with him? Why had Neil chose to become that close to _him_ , over Allelujah and Setsuna, only to leave him, four years after the final battle had ended, with this question?

-

 

(Tieria eventually learned the answer soon enough,  but by then, he had learned his true purpose as an Innovade -- but he would never betray his comrades that fast if it meant that Neil wouldn't be faithful in him to be who he wanted to be.)

 

* * *

 2313: he who has come to seek understanding

-

Lyle Dylandy visited the burial grounds every time he and the rest of the crew were given time for vacation.

 

The name Neil Dylandy was engraved below the rest of his family's names now, and next to the gravestone was another, smaller tombstone bearing the name Anew Returner. 

 

This visit felt different to Lyle today. It was sunny for a change, with a healthy dispersement of clouds within the sky over the burial grounds. As Lyle set his large bouquet of flowers between the two stones, he couldn't help but think of Anew. He remembered the lessons he had learned since he had taken up the offer to join Celestial Being -- and since he had decided to join the organisation permanently a year ago. 

 

The simple act of attempting to come to an understanding with the opposing party -- this was the true first step to achieving peace and unity. This was the new duty of Celestial Being, to ensure that the world they watched over stayed put on the path they had unraveled for the Earth Sphere Federation to walk upon -- especially when the time came to enact the final step in the Plan, to commence the dialogues that were to come in the future. 

 

Anew had taught him that, the meaning of understanding one another, and it was because they had been able to understand what the two of them were living for, that they were able to love each other genuinely. 

 

Lyle smiled to himself. Was love another key to understanding other people, other humans, Innovades, Innovators? Setsuna was now an Innovator, and ever since he had come to that realisation, that there was no going back to a time before he had begun to experience Innovation -- Lyle had noticed that Setsuna had become more indifferent towards the feelings of others, especially Lyle himself and Feldt Grace, whose attraction towards Setsuna was growing by the day. 

 

Suddenly, Lyle noticed a bright, golden-yellow flower atop Anew's grave. He was sure it wasn't there when he arrived at the site.

 

Setsuna F. Seiei was standing next to him when Lyle turned to look towards his side.

 

"If you wanted to come along back to Earth with me you could have said so. Would have made the trip a bit more bearable too," Lyle said, sighing deeply.

 

Setsuna did not respond, but chose to leave a second flower next to Lyle's bouquet -- the same golden-yellow flower.

 

"It's a flower that represents the country of Azadistan, which Krugis is a part of now. It has a very special meaning to me...I thought it would be a better way to remember both of them," Setsuna said.

 

Lyle said nothing. He understood then -- Setsuna was learning how to understand others too -- maybe even relearning how to understand other people.

 

They would continue on this path of understanding together, it seemed...

-

(After all, in the dialogues to come, Setsuna would eventually serve as humanity's trailblazer.)

**Author's Note:**

> If you could figure out which of the four 00 openings I referenced in the title for 2311 (Tieria's part), congratulations! If you couldn't, it's the third opening, Hakanaku mo Towa no Kanashi (UVERworld).
> 
> I really really apologise if I write a character so far OOC (namely, Tieria, because he's sO HARD TO WRITE TBVH AND I STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I DID OTHER THAN ITS PROBABLY WRONG) that it ruins the mood of the fic or that you just can't like it. (or, well, if i completely just wrote nonsense because most of this was written between 10 pm and 4 am because of my schedules) If that's the case, feel free to tell me where I fucked up, and I will either severely edit the fic or just remove it from AO3 altogether -- that's my new policy for any work that either me or the reader dislikes to that level. You can do so below (if you have an AO3 account), at my tumblr @shengyoushengyin, or at my curiouscat @txtsuhxsa.


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